


Chaos as a State of Being

by mydearestlove



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - War, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Clarke, BAMF Lexa, BAMF Octavia, BAMF Raven Reyes, Brutality, Civil War, Commander Lexa, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Fights, Friendship/Love, Girl Power, Heavy Angst, Hostage Situations, Love, Minor Octavia Blake/Raven Reyes, POV Octavia Blake, Physical Abuse, Power Dynamics, Protective Clarke, Psychological Drama, Psychological Trauma, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Romantic Angst, Romantic Friendship, Sad Lexa, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Violence, Slavery, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 20:44:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8592961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydearestlove/pseuds/mydearestlove
Summary: WARNING: This work is heavy laden with violence and assault.There are days I cannot think, cannot get out of bed because I hear their voices. I see their faces.Smartie. Princess. Majesty. Lucky. Skinny. Mother.I see them running, crying, laughing, sleeping, sobbing. I see them silhouetted by flames. I hear their voices. Majesty used to sing. There are days I swear I hear her in my house, her voice drifting to me, high and watery. Smartie used to mumble to herself. I mumble to myself now, too. I sometimes pretend I am her. I talk to her and then I talk back to myself and she answers.I will never get out of there.I will never leave them - no, they will never leave me.I will see their faces every day for the rest of my life.And if there ever comes a day I do not remember them, I don’t deserve to live a moment more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This work is heavy. I encourage you to read it if you are intrigued by the kinds of psychological bonds women make with each other under trauma, if you are intrigued by the endurance of the human spirit and the collective strength and compassion women have for each other. This is a story about a sisterhood formed in the midst of hell. Each woman is a slave and yet refuses to be stamped out. It's fierce but it is heavy. If scenes of violence and trauma upset you, this is not the work for you. 
> 
> I am eager to exemplify these women and their unbridled fierceness of spirit. You will be able to piece together who is who as the text goes on fairly quickly. 
> 
> Please leave your thoughts, comments, concerns, and questions in the comments. Thank you so much and lots of love.

Everything is so soft now. Everything is so safe. I can walk down the street. I dress myself in clothes that I picked for myself. Soft, plain sweaters that make me feel innocent again. I drink coffee. I can afford silly things like drawing paper and books. I go to therapy. Like the rich people do. 

Everything is so soft, so easy. Still, there are days I cannot think, cannot get out of bed because I hear their voices. I see their faces. 

Smartie. Princess. Majesty. Lucky. Skinny. Mother. 

I see them running, crying, laughing, sleeping, sobbing. I see them silhouetted by flames. I hear their voices. Majesty used to sing. There are days I swear I hear her in my house, her voice drifting to me, high and watery. Smartie used to mumble to herself. I mumble to myself now, too. I sometimes pretend I am her. I talk to her and then I talk back to myself and she answers.

I will never get out of there. 

I will never leave them - no, they will never leave me.

I will see their faces every day for the rest of my life. 

And if there ever comes a day I do not remember them, I don’t deserve to live a moment more. 

  
  


                                                                                               ⧫                ⧫               ⧫              ⧫                 ⧫

   

The first man I ever entertained stayed for far too long. He was a general. He had hair so black it looked blue sometimes, and it never moved because he gelled it down so it felt like petrified wood. I know because one time I tried to run my fingers through it and he hit me. 

I had been there for 6 hours. The ceiling was low, so low that the men going in and out of the house had to duck their heads. It sagged in some places as if someone with a large bottom decided to camp out on the roof, and the whole place had a smell to it that can’t be described as anything other than sadness. It was like a mix of mold and dusty wood and old books and blood. 

“How old is she?” 

“Seventeen, sir.”

“I told you he wanted a  _ young  _ one,” a burly man snapped, jerking his head to the side.

“She’s tiny, I thought she was about fifteen when I first saw her,” came a meek reply.

The burly man tapped his foot and looked me slowly up and down. I forced myself to breathe deeply and purposefully in order to quell my increasing desire to throw myself to damnation by running like a madwoman. 

“Hmm,” He fiddled with his dark goatee and nodded thoughtfully. “I see your point. She does have tiny, delicate features. She’s like a little doll. A baby.”

The man behind him, the friendly-faced one who had dragged me here, nodded sharply and appeared relieved.

Suddenly, the burly man stepped toward me and grabbed my chin tightly in his fat fingers, twisting my head from side to side. I gritted my teeth and forced air out of my nose, reminiscent of a bull about to charge. My chest physically heaved with the sheer power of the anger roiling in me, jumping from limb to limb to limb to limb and finally settling in my heart. He forced my face to his, leaned down so that his ugly, wide nose was touching the upturned tip of mine.

“Your name is Baby. Plain and simple. Whatever name you had before this doesn’t exist anymore. It died with your mother. Baby, that’s all you are. Just Baby. You have no last name, no middle name, no name but Baby. You are fifteen. Understand?” His eyes bore into mine and I stared back, feeling like I should look away but unable to do so.

I expelled air loudly out of my nose and set my jaw but didn’t dare answer. I would not speak.

“I said, do you understand?” His voice held a threatening edge.

I spit.

The slap I received was hard enough to make me lose my footing and dangle for an agonizing second by my wrists, sending pain shooting down my arms and through my sides. 

“Take her to get cleaned up. Next time you bring a girl to me that scuffed up, you’re out of a position. I run a business here,” he said dismissively over his shoulder as he thudded away in his heavy boots, wiping his cheek. 

“Sorry about this,” mumbled the thin boy who had dragged me to hell as he undid the clasps around my wrists and proceeded to hoist me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. I let my head flop heavily against his back with each clumsy step, watching fascinatedly as my long brown hair nearly brushed the dirty wood floor the whole way from the viewing room to the washroom. 

He dumped me unceremoniously into a big clawfoot tub and turned a knob, spraying ice cold water all over my shins. I gasped sharply and he shot me an apologetic look. 

“We don’t get hot water here,” he said, and his remorse seemed genuine. He stared at me for longer than I thought necessary or appropriate, with a strange look on his face, as if he was staring at me because I reminded him of someone he had once known, perhaps loved, and had lost. Suddenly he blinked hard and shook his head, said, “I’ll go get Majesty to get you cleaned up for your first, uh...client.”

I didn’t answer him. He left the room, but I did not turn my head or even shift my eyes to follow his movements. I stared forward at my tiny pink toes poking above the water, saw the goosebumps on my legs, saw the spider resting on the faucet knob. My heart beat unnaturally slowly. After 72 thumps of my heart, I heard someone enter the room.

She was the first one I met. When she walked in, I knew she was a somebody here. Her hair was long and brown and silky, it had those big waves that women had in the 50s and 60s when they used clips to curl it in place, but hers appeared natural. Her nose was long and straight, like the kind of nose I imagine a viking queen would have had, and her eyes were so fiercely green that I could tell they were green before she even crossed the big empty room. She carried herself straight, like she was both proud of something and ashamed of it at the same time, like a tantalizing but damning secret, and her deep blue dressing robe dragged the ground. I could tell why she had been named Majesty.

She drug an old wooden chair over to the side of the tub and sat down, crossing her legs delicately and staring at me in a purely observatory manner. After several moments of long, weighty silence, she spoke, and the authority in her voice told me I had been right about her.

“What’s your name?” She asked sharply.

“Octavia,” I whispered, staring at her knees.

“That is not your name!” Majesty snapped, leaning down to grip the side of the tub. Her eyes were oddly sympathetic. “What name did he give you?”

“Baby,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Cute,” she mocked.

“Very original,” I deadpanned. Glancing up, I saw her pouty lips turned up just slightly at one corner. 

“Why’d you fight?” She asked, seemingly blase, raising a brow at my battle scars.

“Why didn’t you?” I countered, suddenly defensive.

“I did.” Her voice was sharp. “Didn’t do me a damn bit of good.”

I inhaled long and loud through my nose, staring at her.

“You can’t fight. You can’t go the easy route. You have to dig, you have to tunnel, subvert, not resist. Little things. Day by day. Small victories. That’s what you live for here. Fighting is a dead language to us.”

I was quiet for a long time, feeling like a chalkboard someone had only halfway erased before writing on it again. Then, almost afraid to ask, I ventured,

“How long have you been here?”

She snorted. “Too damn long. Long enough to know better. Long enough to see the girls I came with get desperate enough to run.”

“How come you haven’t run?” My voice was frail.

“I’m not ready to die yet, Baby.” 

She bathed me in the icy water, trying her best not to hurt me. It did little good, but I appreciated it. She had a sort of private inner strength that I admired and wanted to emulate. I was glad she was the first one I had met. Majesty combed my hair until it was tangle-free and then braided two halves, tying them together in the back. She had originally intended to let me borrow some of her clothes, but I was so small that she had to ask around until Skinny reluctantly handed over a dress and an undergarment set. 

“He’ll give you your own soon, and he might even let you pick them out yourself, but it will take a couple of days. You have a client at 5:00, though, so this will have to do,” explained Majesty as she laced me up in a disgustingly pink corset. The lace was falling off and the trim was grey with dust and dirt. 

She squatted on the floor in front of me, steadfastly applying makeup to my discolored face as she explained the rules to me.

“Do what he asks you to do. ‘Yes sir, no sir’ is the default. If he asks you to call him something different, you call him that. It will hurt. It hurts less if you relax, so try to relax if you can. Don’t fight. You’re going to want to - but don’t. Like I said, fighting is a dead language here. Keep a low profile. Keep your mouth shut. The girls can be just as mean as the men and oftentimes meaner,” She made eye contact with me as she said that. “Oh, and you’re going to have to talk. You’re going to have to smile and fake it. They don’t like it when you look sad, it makes them feel guilty.” 

Majesty patted my knees twice, reassuringly, then squeezed them.

“One more thing: you’re going to survive it.” 

Then, she swept out of the room, apparently satisfied with her crash course.

 

The first man I ever entertained stayed for far too long. He was a general. A decorated one. He kept showing me the badges and pins on his lapel, asking if I knew what each one was for, knowing I did not, just so he could proudly declare it to me. As if I cared. As if I would admire him, somehow. He talked so much first, it made me crazy.

I had my own room now, but it was bare. There was my bed, a nightstand, a chair, and a vanity with a large ceramic bowl filled with water. When he strode in, he took off his heavy coat like he owned the place, and laid it over my chair. Like it was familiar to him. He smiled at me and asked if I knew he was the reason I was here to begin with.

I blinked at him, but he didn’t press me for a response. He just tilted his head and looked at me like one looks at a small child who has done wrong but is so cute you cannot be angry. 

“I asked for a new girl. I thought to myself, ‘How fulfilling would it be to break one in? To have my very own, shaped to how I want her?’ And thus, they brought me you,” He grinned, making a sweeping gesture over me. My doll-like features. Baby.

He sidled over and touched my chin gently with his index finger, looking down his nose at me. 

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

I waited a beat too long before I whispered, my voice hoarse, “Baby.”

“What’s your real name?” He murmured enticingly.

“Baby,” I replied firmly.

He quirked up one corner of his mouth and nodded solidly. 

“You catch on fast, don’t ya?”

I nodded and fixed my eyes on a point just above his head. He crossed the room and stared out my window for a very long time, leaning his weight against the frame, propping a booted foot up on the sill. He looked out the window for so long I began to fidget, wondering if he meant to have me at all or simply stand in my window for eternity like a threatening remnant of a nightmare that had slipped its way into my reality.

“Why do you look so sad?” He asked the window, his breath fogging up the glass. I remained silent. After a moment or two, he motioned me over to the window next to him. I stood listless, watching as snowflakes swirled and fell onto the rocky ground, wishing I were one of them, blowing away into nothingness. Life since the war had been nothing but empty.

His breath fogged up the glass once more and without thinking, I reached up and pressed it with the side of my fist. Then, I made five little dots with my finger. It was something my mother had done when I was a little girl. She was so creative.

Surprised, he jerked back. Then, observing my little drawing, broke into a smile. 

“A baby foot. How adorable!” He blew on the glass pane next to mine and repeated my motions, forming a very large, clumsy foot of his own. He chuckled, then without warning, he kissed me. I stiffened.

I had never been kissed before. I thought being kissed was a passive activity, so I did nothing other than stand there stiff as a board as he slobbered on me. He seemed irritated and gripped my shoulders tightly, so that my extra skin poked out between each knuckle like when you squeeze a handful of playdoh. 

He advanced on me, stepping on my bare toe with his heavy boot. Soon, the hard wood of my footboard pressed into the small of my back. His breath was hot and smelled sour. 

“Why don’t you speak?” He asked me gruffly.

In what I thought was a sufficient answer, I didn’t speak.

“Are you sad?” He asked. It seemed important to him that I not be sad. So I shook my head. No.

“Are you scared? Don’t be.” It seemed as though it thrilled him a little, knowing that I might be afraid, and it seemed important to him that I secretly be scared. I wanted him to know I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t scared, I was angry. 

I used my voice, replied in a full tone, “No, I’m not scared.”

This seemed to surprise him, and he drew his bushy brows together in puzzlement before a look of strange irritation flitted across his features. 

“Why aren’t you?” His grip was sweaty and tight around my arms.

I didn’t answer him. I’d spoken enough. 

“You’re gonna be one hell of a project,” he muttered, flinging me onto the bed by my arm. My head bounced , whipped my neck from front to back painfully. 

Majesty was right. It hurt. I didn’t even mean to, but I bit him. 

He talked too much and his motives unsettled me. His body on mine was too much. I thought it might poison me. I didn’t know what to do and it felt like I was choking on broken glass. I bit him so hard on the shoulder that he bled. He punched me so hard in the mouth that I almost did choke on my broken tooth.

He slammed his boot into my ribs when he left and when he left he slammed the door. I received my first complaint against me.

I laid in the bed for 7 hours, until the girls sent Smartie in to see me. 


End file.
